Plusnet phone price rise

How can Plusnet justify a 14% rise in the anytime call plan? The monthly line rental charge is also going up by £1. I can not find anywhere that says by how much the annual line rental will go up by but I have been led to believe it will be £12 p.a. If it is this I may well move to Talktalk when my current annual line rental runs out. I have never moved my broadband before so I would be grateful if someone could give me an idea of how long it takes.
If I moved to TT I would go for the essentials package and if I read it correctly I could add anytime calls for £5. Could a TT user please tell me if this includes free caller display or is it an add on as per PN.
I have been very happy with PN but price is a major consideration. I feel that this price rise has been badly handled as I have not had an email to tell me anything and only found out from the PN forum.

Edited by deleted (Sat 15-Sep-12 00:20:13)

I suggest asking about TalkTalk at that level of detail, in the Plusnet forum, seems a little unlikely to get useful replies. How many TalkTalk users do you expect to be reading (a) this forum, and (b) of few that may do will read a thread with the Subject "Plusnet phone price rise"?

How about the TalkTalk forum? Even general Broadband Chatter or Which ISP? (Residential) are better places than here.

How can Plusnet justify a 14% rise in the anytime call plan?

Easy ... Just like BT proper, all these scandalous price rises and connection fees force many to cough up the for the call anytime plan, as just a couple of calls per week cost a fortune if you don't. Like the year up front it is just another cash grab.

In reply to a post by professor973:

How can Plusnet justify a 14% rise in the anytime call plan?

Easy ... Just like BT proper, all these scandalous price rises and connection fees force many to cough up the for the call anytime plan, as just a couple of calls per week cost a fortune if you don't. Like the year up front it is just another cash grab.

I do love the uneducated knee jerk reaction over what is in fact a small price rise in reality when expressed as a %'age rise.

If you hadn't noticed the Bank of England has spectaculary failed to keep inflation under control and there are certainly costs to most companies that have been held for a long time now that cannot be absorbed anymore.

Energy prices are where the real problem is, they are very high and are going up year on year by 9-10% and that is a big number with a big percentage rise slapped on top.

The supermarkets also have been putting a huge amount of prices up and yet not an eyelid is batted yet a phone provider who has put line rental up £1 per month gets attacked.

I would expect the rest of the oligarchy to move now with a rise in prices in some shape or form as now 2 providers have announced it.

Whilst it may seem a good idea to save money on transfer to a new provider.A balance needs to be kept of price versus service.
The price rise does not change until January 2013 and, it is unlikely that this is being shown by TT at this time.
I was with TT on a market 1 CN21 exchange, they would not upgrade me from existing CN20.
The peak time performance with TT varied between 0.25 and 1.25 mb on an 6 mb sync.
I am now on a CN21 with a new provider with Peak speeds of 11 mb.
Price, to me, was not the issue, frustration was. paying more but hey service and speed no comparison.
With 170 calls per quarter Anytime worth the cost.
You may find that the TT discount is for 12 months. talk to Plusnet first, many people have been offered reduced payments.

Edited by flippery (Sat 15-Sep-12 11:41:54)

TT callerid was an additional option

As more people make calls within the bundles, then it is to be expected for bundles to go up, i.e. original bundles were perhaps a marketing drive with minimal or no profit, now as millions use them the move is towards making a profit. Not a thesis on plusnet but the market as a whole.

Sky has its pay TV to supplement pricing, but is still putting them up, and TalkTalk is in the land grab with YouView currently.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

As more people make calls within the bundles, then it is to be expected for bundles to go up, i.e. original bundles were perhaps a marketing drive with minimal or no profit, now as millions use them the move is towards making a profit.

And as has been mentioned before, it only takes 62 minutes of peak time calls to justify spending £4.90 on an anytime calls package. And that calculation ignores the frankly crazy 13.1p "set up fee" (BT pricing, but many other providers are similar).

Essentially, phone companies are pricing out "pay as you go" landline users and forcing them onto packages, or indeed mobile phone contracts.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

And that calculation ignores the frankly crazy 13.1p "set up fee" (BT pricing, but many other providers are similar).

And you can't really ignore the set-up fee as it is likely to account for around £2 (unless you're a woman, where one call takes up the 62 minutes ). This modern aberration needs to go, for years it was just a (roughly) 5p minimum call charge, no set-up fee. Why not go back to that - if it needs to be 10p, fair enough, but it's more honest.

In reply to a post by kasg:

And you can't really ignore the set-up fee as it is likely to account for around £2 (unless you're a woman, where one call takes up the 62 minutes ). This modern aberration needs to go, for years it was just a (roughly) 5p minimum call charge, no set-up fee. Why not go back to that - if it needs to be 10p, fair enough, but it's more honest.

I didn't want my calculation to make any assumptions about the number of calls.

And I agree, the minimum charge method was much fairer than the current set up fee method. Unfortunately, I can't see them switching back to the old system, since the current system is more profitable.

And there will still be suppliers that buy in bulk from BT, but still not charge connection fees or per minute, but still offer calls at 1p per minute

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

As more people make calls within the bundles, then it is to be expected for bundles to go up, i.e. original bundles were perhaps a marketing drive with minimal or no profit, now as millions use them the move is towards making a profit.

And as has been mentioned before, it only takes 62 minutes of peak time calls to justify spending £4.90 on an anytime calls package. And that calculation ignores the frankly crazy 13.1p "set up fee" (BT pricing, but many other providers are similar).

Essentially, phone companies are pricing out "pay as you go" landline users and forcing them onto packages, or indeed mobile phone contracts.

That is if it is just one long call. You are forgetting the scandalous connection fee. One call of a few seconds each day will cost over 20p. Total rip off.

In reply to a post by kasg:

for years it was just a (roughly) 5p minimum call charge, no set-up fee.

My line rental is with Primus (which has recently gone up to 7.99/month) and the calls I make through 1899.com are still 5p per call to 01/02/03 numbers, so whether I am talking to someone for 5 minutes or 5 hours, it's still just 5p.

Only my wish to switch to Fibre when it becomes available will move me to renting a line from PN, or I'd keep things as they are. Unfortunately the 'Believe in Better' firm won't install a second line at a sensible price, despite suggesting in their literature it costs around 40 quid, else I'd have been willing to try them out on a second line, second net link.

What's to stop you having PN fibre on the Primus line rental?

If you know you want to stay with PN for at least another year why not sign up for the line rental saver scheme. This morning I paid £113.98 (£9.49/month) for a year's line rental. Presumably this is similar to the BT scheme where you save money by paying a year's rental up front.

Now that BT and PN have upped charges I suspect the others won't be far behind. Or if BT and PN find they are losing too many customers as a result of the rises there will likely be various offers to lure them back. It's a tough old commercial world out there, with a fair bit of genuine competition (not perfect but not too bad) so most of us can change suppliers if we don't like what's on offer.

In reply to a post by ppppenguin99:

If you know you want to stay with PN for at least another year why not sign up for the line rental saver scheme....

It might be an idea if you clarify who you are talking to.

You've replied to me, which is probably simply because I was the latest poster, but that doesn't make sense.

It can't be the poster I addressed either, as he isn't with Plusnet.

Have a read of the headers, and note that every post has its own reply button. There's nothing in your post to make the person it is aimed at read it. Especially if they rely on the email alert system, (see My Home options at the bottom), to tell them someone has replied to them, so to come and read the thread.

His may have been a reasonable 'general' reply, rather than one specifically to you (given nothing was quoted).

What's to stop me is PlusNet, who now say on their site that one needs a line rented from them.

I don't remember it ever saying that during the trial phase, but then (and even now) FTTC was not an option for me, so I could not take up the trial, unfortunately.

I dislike being forced into choosing my line by my ISP, even PN, and that's why I went as far as checking if Sky would install a second line and get FTTC with them instead (while retaining PN for the fixed IP I use), but it'll perhaps mean ditching Primus if my second ISP option doesn't allow me to have it on a Primus line... or possibly use Primus for ADSL (though I'm not especially tempted, but it may serve as a backup when I have cancelled my Three 15GB/ 8quid a month contract).

You can have Plusnet Fibre without a Plusnet phone line. You have to cough up 50 quid for installation though.
If you look on the fibre product page, there's a button about halfway down which says something like "just want broadband - we also offer fibre broadband on its own"

In reply to a post by pt1158:

You can have Plusnet Fibre without a Plusnet phone line. You have to cough up 50 quid for installation though.
If you look on the fibre product page, there's a button about halfway down which says something like "just want broadband - we also offer fibre broadband on its own"

Cashback is his friend .

In reply to a post by pt1158:

If you look on the fibre product page, there's a button about halfway down

Thanks for that - to be frank I thought there was a 50 quid install anyway - and when I rang PlusNet and specifically asked (having seen something about one needing a line from PlusNet) the person I spoke to did not clarify that I could have Fibre without renting the line from PlusNet

I have not re-visited to check, and must have missed that button - I felt that PN had decided to force a switch in recent months (ie after launch of the product) and it was "something new" as a condition of service (as far as I could tell) though from your comment it wasn't, just a 'desire' on behalf of PN, or so it seems!

Thanks again. Feel I was a bit misled about the need for a PN rented line from the person I spoke to. I indicated that I had a line with Primus and asked specifically whether a PN line is needed (since I had never previously spotted that bit of small print - though have to admit to infrequent viewing, since availability for me was months away from the time I started looking, back in January).

Though in truth, installing a line for 49 quid wasn't a bad price and I am wanting a second line, so since Sky was going to charge 110 or more - took about 5 calls to find that yes, they could install a second line, just that they didn't usually do so, and it would definitely cost more than 39 quid - so as I say, 49 quid is a cheaper option... and it would be thereabouts whether I got it on a second line or my existing line, just a charge for different things, perhaps!

Cashback for an existing PN customer ?

If you have seen something I haven't please divulge

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

And as has been mentioned before, it only takes 62 minutes of peak time calls to justify spending £4.90 on an anytime calls package. And that calculation ignores the frankly crazy 13.1p "set up fee" (BT pricing, but many other providers are similar).

Essentially, phone companies are pricing out "pay as you go" landline users and forcing them onto packages, or indeed mobile phone contracts.

I have to agree and a marketshare our customers were asking us to supply them with. I don't want to jump on a Plusnet thread, but not all of us are asking for bundles to be brought...ie: http://www.aquiss.net/phone_line_rental.php

In reply to a post by aquiss:

I have to agree and a marketshare our customers were asking us to supply them with. I don't want to jump on a Plusnet thread, but not all of us are asking for bundles to be brought...ie: http://www.aquiss.net/phone_line_rental.php

Fair enough on the connection fee charges, but your offering looks less attractive than BT's £14.60 line rental when considering voicemail + caller id takes your line rental to £17.80, weekend calls are not inclusive, and evening calls cost more than twice as much per minute.

Edited by Oliver341 (Thu 20-Sep-12 15:24:29)

Hi Oliver341,

As I mentioned it depends on different models. Some folks don't do the volume of calls (maybe just used for a data line) so why pay for things you don't need? Most the options you mention via BT are included, but via a bundle or feature a customer is paying for, so included yep, but are indirectly being charged. BT line rental with evening/weekend plan comes to £17.75 (BT charges also go up on Jan 5th, ours, and I presume may other companies, are not).

For reference (and data from a few hundred phone lines) only 9% take Caller ID and 4% take voicemail (likely because they have answerphones with it built in).

I disagree on call charges....our rates are very competitive for a WLR3 based solution. Likewise, no 12 or 18 month contracts.

Edited by aquiss (Thu 20-Sep-12 16:05:04)

In reply to a post by aquiss:

Most the options you mention via BT are included, but via a bundle or feature a customer is paying for, so included yep, but are indirectly being charged. BT line rental with evening/weekend plan comes to £17.75 (BT charges also go up on Jan 5th, ours, and I presume may other companies, are not).

You don't need BT's Evening & Weekend plan to get 1571 voicemail and caller id, they come included with the £14.60 Weekend plan.

In reply to a post by aquiss:

4% take voicemail (likely because they have answerphones with it built in).

Built-in Ansaphone does not pick up when you are on the phone; 1571 does.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by aquiss:

4% take voicemail (likely because they have answerphones with it built in).

Built-in Ansaphone does not pick up when you are on the phone; 1571 does.

Yes, fair point. We will have to see if we drive down the wholesale cost we get from BTW. Good comment though.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

You don't need BT's Evening & Weekend plan to get 1571 voicemail and caller id, they come included with the £14.60 Weekend plan.

Interesting if that is the case....i have a very recent phone BT bill in front of me....and the charge comes to £17.75 and certainly not included in the £14.60

Is this included if you have also taken a broadband service....ie: is this a pure phone line on it's own solution? Are we comparing like for like?

Edited by aquiss (Thu 20-Sep-12 16:24:16)

In reply to a post by aquiss:

Interesting if that is the case....i have a very recent phone BT bill in front of me....and the charge comes to £17.75 and certainly not included in the £14.60

Are you talking about evening calls, or the caller id + voicemail features? £14.60 includes voicemail + caller id but not evening calls.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by aquiss:

Interesting if that is the case....i have a very recent phone BT bill in front of me....and the charge comes to £17.75 and certainly not included in the £14.60

Are you talking about evening calls, or the caller id + voicemail features? £14.60 includes voicemail + caller id but not evening calls.

That's what I wanted clarity on....I was talking about the calls part, not voicemail/caller id bit. That's makes more sense now.

In reply to a post by aquiss:

That's what I wanted clarity on....I was talking about the calls part, not voicemail/caller id bit. That's makes more sense now.

That said, if you sign up for 18 months you can get inclusive evening calls on BT at no extra cost on a retentions deal, making it £14.60. You're probably no fan of long contracts, but the choice is there.

In reply to a post by aquiss:

Interesting if that is the case....i have a very recent phone BT bill in front of me....and the charge comes to £17.75 and certainly not included in the £14.60

Unlimited Weekend Calls costs line rental of £14.60 only. Oliver341 was talking about that.

Unlimited Evening & Weekend Calls costs £3.15 + line rental of £14.60 = £17.75. So you are talking about that.

In all cases: 1571 is free upon request. Caller ID is free if you request the free BT Privacy at Home scheme *.

* Both subject to usual small print T&Cs, esp. on min. no. of calls made.

Thanks!

In reply to a post by ultra:

Cashback for an existing PN customer ?

If you have seen something I haven't please divulge

LOL
Sorry - as we were talking about the phone line + fibre, I forgot you are already with them on ADSLx.

But we get the E & W plan included. They charge £53.25pq and credit £9.15pq.

As far as I know simply because we maintain the 6 "would be chargeable" calls within the quarter. Which also gives Caller ID. Isn't 1571 included anyway?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

But we get the E & W plan included. They charge £53.25pq and credit £9.15pq.

Were you or are you on the free evening and weekend calls with a 12 month renewable contract deal? Even if you were on it and it has expired, I think they let you keep the discount.

We are on it, and have been for ages. It does call itself a "special discount", and when I asked a bit ago what that was she didn't know! So I didn't press the point, not wanting to lose it.

The new BT prices look staggering really. Especially as our usage almost certainly justifies "Anytime". Sounds like arm-twisting time with their retentions.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

But we get the E & W plan included. They charge £53.25pq and credit £9.15pq.

= £14.70 pm.

But I was talking standard prices. You are prob on Unlimited UK Evening & Weekend calls at no extra cost � 18 months contract deal or some legacy variant of it.

We can all get Special Offers, I have Unlimited Anytime Extra for £4.90 per month and Line Rental with £2 off for 12 months but having trouble getting BT to bill the discount at the mo' .

Good Lord! A huge pile of old offers there.

I've no idea if we had any of those. (Certainly never any Anytime variant). We've had the line since 1973, and 1471 and Friends and Family just seemed to walk in at some time.

This package probably arose when F & F was discontinued, as that is the last change I remember. But I don't recall any special deal aspect. I do recall signing up at some time for the minimum calls of six per quarter to get caller display and Privacy, but rentals have always been, in effect, the standard rate.

But checking my bills for the purpose of my previous post, the one before last looks dodgy! Overcharged somehow. Grrr. Another job.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

But I don't recall any special deal aspect.

Evening & Weekend has cost extra for a few years now, my guess is that you somehow ended up on Unlimited UK Evening & Weekend calls at no extra cost � 12 month renewable contract deal or something similar.

Ofcom have made sure that renewable contracts are no longer allowed, so the last renewals happened in December 2011. However, I think BT have allowed customers whos deal has expired to retain the free E&W calls.

To replace the old deal (for customers not getting the legacy deal), they brought in the 18 month non-renewing contract.

Edited by Oliver341 (Thu 20-Sep-12 22:19:14)

k

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

We can all get Special Offers, I have Unlimited Anytime Extra for £4.90 per month and Line Rental with £2 off for 12 months but having trouble getting BT to bill the discount at the mo' .

Can't see that one on the offers T&C page, was that ever on the website?

No, I negotiated it by phone and when I later did it for my daughter, she got it with £3 off i.e. Anytime for £1.90 pm . If I remember rightly it was offered cuz they had made mistakes on our previous bills.

Since then it has appeared on our "Choose your Calling Plan" under our My BT.

Ah right, I thought all the deals were always on the page you quoted previously on the thread. I only ever went for E&W at no extra cost on a renewable contract, I didn't press for anything extra.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

I thought all the deals were always on the page you quoted previously on the thread.

What I have with just £1 off used to be but these Extra ones never were. But even that was hard to place as when you rang up they claimed they never heard of it and I had to navigate them to the page in question.

In fact I naturally used to insist on the Anytime with 3 months free over Anytime with £1 off for 12 months.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

I have Unlimited Anytime Extra for £4.90 per month and Line Rental with £2 off for 12 months but having trouble getting BT to bill the discount at the mo' .

Sorted! After complaining I was passed by the Indian on the end of 150 line to a Scots member of Customer Option Team (COT) and I am now on same deal with £3 pm off for next 12 months. It has been confirmed by just appearing under my online My BT a/c .

Looks like a call to action for me, as we need Anytime not E & W, but I don't want to lose this free E & W in the process.

My wife just refuses to use my mobile for daytime calls - too much hassle.

Also, I thought daytime 0845/0870 were free. Not so . Just cheaper than using the mobile.

If you are on Anytime they are free on BT and Plusnet - I don't know about anyone else

Quite. They are free in E & W, but not week daytime.

Are You referring to 0845/0870 numbers on Plusnet anytime during the weekdays?

If so they look free to me looking at the advertising blurb or do the terms and conditions read differently?

Duh! He said during week daytime on the E & W Plan, not Anytime; at which time they are not free.

And I hoped all my posts have followed on, talking about what I have found about my BT plan that I now need to review in the light of price rises here and there. Quite a long chain though.

The supermarkets also have been putting a huge amount of prices up and yet not an eyelid is batted yet a phone provider who has put line rental up £1 per month gets attacked.

I'm a bit late to this thread but that is a good comment. All suppliers in the UK charge what their market will bear hence the price increase of basic products in supermarkets.

With the price of a reasonable bottle of Rioja in Spain at less that four euro I'm tempted to see what they charge for broadband there too.....!! Could I make a "profit" by moving?

Meldrew

In reply to a post by meldrew:

[
.....
All suppliers in the UK charge what their market will bear hence the price increase of basic products in supermarkets.
.......
With the price of a reasonable bottle of Rioja in Spain at less that four euro I'm tempted to see what they charge for broadband there too.....!! Could I make a "profit" by moving?

Meldrew
[/quote]

Including the Goverment with taxes and fuel tax escalators...!

You won't make profit, you will just drink more Rioja...!

In reply to a post by meldrew:

I'm tempted to see what they charge for broadband there too.....!!
Meldrew

And the speed/reliability?

Pretty pleased at the moment that I don't have a phone line, so no need to pay for line rental. sadly not everyone can do that.

Does the price rice still apply if you've paid up front for 12 months, surely that is part of the contract?

No, and if your 12 months is up soon you can renew early at the old price!

I don't think that it has been posted here that the rise has been deferred for a month - see http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1084...

(sorry Jelv, this isn't specifically a reply to you, but nowhere else sensible to put it!)

BT are puting the wholsale price of the line rental up. You will find BT retail are increasing the line rental.

All ISP's and Telco's will be putting he price up. Some will delay increasing it to try to gain business but it will go up